


Tempus Fugit

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [90]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Gen, MSR, Mentions of Cancer, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 12:49:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5164421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf





	Tempus Fugit

He tells himself that it has nothing to do with her cancer, but that’s a lie. Even though he wants to believe, does believe, that she is going to be all right, that they will find a way to beat it, there is some tiny part of him that can’t bear the thought of letting her birthday go by without fanfare.

Just in case.

It can’t be obvious, though. No balloons in the office, no flowers. The workday itself should be just like any other. Let her think he’s forgotten again -- he’s never _actually_ forgotten, just doesn’t like celebrating his own birthday and didn’t want to set a precedent -- play the role of oblivious partner, easy enough after four years of practice. 

He can’t help getting her a gift, however. It’s just a token, nothing extravagant, but still probably more than he should do, given that the last time he bought her something was when she’d woken up from a coma against all expectation of recovery. He spots the keychain hanging in a souvenir stand, on his way back from picking up lunch one day, and it strikes him as fitting. There’s the space aspect, of course -- a nod to their work and the theories of his that she grudgingly puts up with time and time again -- but more than that, Apollo 11 represents the triumph of science and human ingenuity over tremendous obstacles. It’s Scully in a nutshell, but it’s not so saccharine or cloying a trinket that he can’t pass it off as just another of his oddball gift ideas.

So he brings the keychain in on her birthday, keeps it tucked in his pocket all day as they catch up on field reports and file organization. Ordinarily he would chafe against the mundanity of a day like this, but today, today he doesn’t mind. The lack of anything interesting to work on means there’s nothing keeping them in the office when five o’clock rolls around and he says, with as much nonchalance as he can manage, “All right, if I have to so much as look at another expense report, my head’s gonna explode. I don’t know about you, but I could use a beer. What do you say?”

She looks at him oddly, and it occurs to him that maybe she has plans with her mother or something. It was monumentally stupid of him not to consider that she might actually have birthday plans of her own already. He’s just assumed -- as he always does, he realizes with some chagrin -- that she has nothing better to do tonight than to take him up on his spur of the moment offer. They get meals and the occasional drink together often enough in the field that they almost never go out after work when they’re in DC. It’s not completely unprecedented, but neither is it commonplace enough for him to take for granted that she would say yes. Yet that’s exactly what he did. Could he be more self-centered?

“Yeah, okay,” she says finally, and he schools his features to keep the relief from showing on his face.

“Happy hour at the Headless Woman starts at 5:30,” he says, standing up and beginning to gather his things. “Two dollar nachos.” He waggles his eyebrows, earning himself a smile in response.

“Well, how could I say no to that?”

And so there are beers and nachos and buffalo wings and easy conversation and more beers. Scully is relaxed and happy, exactly what she deserves on her birthday. (It’s what she deserves every day, really, but unfortunately that is a bit beyond his reach.) 

When she gets up to use the restroom, he waves a waiter over and asks if they do anything special for birthdays here.


End file.
